My friend Elena's parents (Al and Ellie) live in Kaiserslautern, Germany, which is south of Frankfurt. While I was in the area, I stopped by and Al showed me how he makes bread. Now when Al says "make bread", here's what he really means... he starts by getting spelt (a kind of wheat) from his cousin in Italy. His cousin actually grows it himself! Then he gets rye and wheat from someone in Germany. After a trip to the basement to get the various grains, we measured them out and consolidate all our ingredients. Here they are...

We have spelt, rye, and wheat grain, plus bread flour, corn meal, oat meal, honey, olive oil, salt, yeast, and water. The recipe includes some bread flour because the grains don't contain enough gluten. Another option is to use sour dough starter if you prefer. Also, for you health nuts, you don't have to add wheat germ because it's already part of the wheat that you grind up. Now on to the actually bread making... I was assigned the "apprentice tasks", starting with a half hour or so of using the electric grain mill pictured below to grind the grains into flour. The machine is quite loud and I got to where these funny headphones to block out the noise. Ellie (Al's wife) tells me that I can get good flour at Henry's or health food stores. But the mill is so fun!

After Al did some more of the "teacher's work", I was again assigned an apprentice task, that of kneading the bread. The more you knead the bread, the chewier it gets. After a good workout, we let the dough sit overnight (although you can leave the dough for a few days if it is kept cool), then we baked it at 400 degrees the next morning. I'm not just saying this because I helped make it, but it was amazing! I brought some to my Belgian friends and they all loved it too. I think it's time for another toy for the kitchen... where can I get a grain mill?

Here are some other things Ellie tells me. "The amusing thing about Al's bread making is that he makes a huge quantity all once in a large laundry basket (without the holes!) and when he adds the salt, it too is unmeasured. He just fills up his cupped hand and hurls it into the flour. I can hardly bear to watch this procedure because too much salt will ruin the dough and too little will yield it tasteless. Al often presses black sweet olives into the dough when he makes flat-bread. He also reserves part of the dough for making deep dish pizza. If there's some left over, I can claim it for cinnamon rolls. Roll the dough thin, smear it with melted butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon, then strew walnuts and raisins on the surface, roll up the dough and slice it into rounds and lay them flat on a greased pan right next to one another. Let rise one hour and bake."